Mount Union Students Give Elevator Pitches

March 26, 2012

Students at the University of Mount Union participated in two elevator pitch competitions during the academic year.

According to Mike Kachilla, assistant professor and internship coordinator of the Department of Economics, Accounting and Business Administration at Mount Union, an elevator pitch is the presentation of a business idea given in 60 to 90 seconds — the time it would take to ride six floors on an elevator.

“You never know when you’re going to meet someone that could be a potential investor,” Kachilla explained.

“Being an entrepreneur is a philosophy, a mentality of ‘what problem can I solve and how can I do it from a business point of view?’” Kachilla said.

The most recent elevator pitch competition was held on Wednesday, March 21. The winner of Wednesday’s event, junior management major Brock Horstman of Kensington, received a $500 cash prize for his wind energy project.

The winner of the fall elevator pitch competition, junior finance major Brandon Mathie of Louisville, will attend an Idea Lab competition sponsored by the Entrepreneurship Education Consortium (EEC) at Hiram College on March 28 for a chance to win a $5,000 cash prize. Mathie will give an 8-10 minute presentation on his business concept, presenting facts and figures and giving a detailed financial plan for his idea. Mathie has been working on his project, a concept for a software program, for almost a year and has worked on the idea for close to 250 hours.

Kachilla said the elevator competition is beneficial to students in many ways.

“They have poise, a high confidence level and the motivation to really pursue their idea,” he said. “Students now feel more confident to move to the next level knowing that they have people on campus who can help develop their ideas.”